


Who You Are

by wishfulthinkment



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-01
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 07:00:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2058396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishfulthinkment/pseuds/wishfulthinkment
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma arrives home from work early and discovers her partner's secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This fic was inspired by Lana's "really a man" reply to the 'Two Lies and a One Truth' thing. 
> 
> Trans!Regina is not a personal head canon of mine, but I was inspired and wanted to demonstrate how it might be, were it the case that Regina was really a man. 
> 
> The fact of the matter is that, if Regina Mills is "really a man", it would mean that Regina Mills is a trans man, and not a "pro at tucking" as someone suggested. I'm no expert on these kinds of things, but it seemed an important distinction to make and so this fic was written in an effort to educate.
> 
> I hope I've done this subject justice.
> 
> UPDATE: I've gone through and changed the tense from present to past, because I've been sketching out some more chapters and past tense is *so* much easier to handle.

Emma muttered to herself as she climbed the stairs.

It hadn't been a good day. Hell, hadn't been a good _week_

She'd forgotten to take her lunch to work with her, but when she'd gone to go and get it the car broken down, so she’d just hiked what felt like a hundred miles in the freezing cold, and to top it all off, Regina had been in a shitty mood all week.

Which is why she paused when she heard humming at the top of the stairs.

Regina was in their room and she sounded… _happy_.

Emma approached quietly and watched for a moment through the half open door and the blinding smile on Regina’s face was just about enough to make her forget the rest of her troubles. 

She was standing in front of the mirror, with her hair tied back, trying on a new outfit in front of the mirror.  It was kind-of androgynous, which Emma found she liked, and she ran her hands down her sides and turned to look at herself in profile.

Which was the moment when Emma noticed something unusual: Regina’s chest was flat.

Emma flicked her eyes down her body, and they caught on the bulge at her crotch.

She coughed slightly in surprise and their eyes met in the mirror.

“Hey.”  Her face wrinkled in mild confusion, but she froze when she noticed the look of terror on Regina’s face.

“Emma!” She whirled around, holding up her hands to her chest, hiding herself.  “How long… how long have you been standing there?”

Re-schooling her features into a neutral expression, Emma slowly walked across the room.  “Not long.” She shrugged and figured that she should probably aim for the truth.  “…Well, for long enough.”

“It’s nothing, n-not what it looks like…” Regina shied away from her and her heart broke. “Listen, Emma, it— it doesn’t _mean_ anything and I— I— ”

She was working her way into a panic and Emma reached out gently to soothe her. 

“Hey… what is this?” Emma’s voice was soft, so soft and though she brought her hand up to brush against the binder, she wasn't asking about the binder.  “You know that you can talk to me about anything, right?  There’s _nothing_ you could say to me that would make us not okay.”

Regina nodded slowly, chest shuddering, trying to hold everything together, trying to find the words to articulate what was going on inside.

“I— I just… I feel like this body I have… it’s not— I don’t…” Regina’s voice trailed off, and Emma pulled her into the circle of her arms, feeling the warmth of hot tears against her neck.

Emma’s mind ticked over the situation, putting the pieces of the puzzle together, her understanding slowly building.

When she spoke again, she spoke in a whisper.

“You feel… you feel as though your body is the wrong body?” 

The only reply was a small nod and Emma’s heart clenched in sympathy.  She wasn't completely unfamiliar with how difficult gender dysphoria could be on a person. When she'd been placed with a particularly religious family in junior high, a foster-brother had turned out to be a foster-sister. 

Emma had been her sole confidante until a suicide attempt had seen the lot of them removed from the home.

“So, you’re really a man?”

Regina stiffened in her arms and Emma waited silently for a response, her hands moving over her back in a continual, calming motion.

“…yes.”

Emma almost didn't hear it, so quite was the whisper.  She wrapped her arms around her shoulders and felt the tension held within them dissipate.

 

 _No,_ she corrected herself.   _Not ‘her’._   _His.  His shoulders._

“Did you… is there another name you’d prefer?”  He pulled back from the embrace, looking a little stunned. 

“Does this mean… does this mean that we’re… _okay_?”

“Yep.”

“B-but you’re a _lesbian…_ a-and I _know_ that you like to wear the strap-on and you _told_ me that you were looking for the "right woman" to settle down with and I… I’m not— I _can’t_ , not anymore.”

“I know.  I _know_ what I thought I was looking for.  But you… _you_ are the person that I _found_ , the person that I fell in love with, the person that I want.  This doesn’t change that… doesn’t change the fact that, at the end of the day, I want to come home to you.”

He closed his eyes and swayed back on his heels and savoured the feeling of her words.  “You really mean that.”

“Yeah.  I do.  Listen: just now? That’s the happiest I think I’ve ever seen you.  I care more about your happiness than I do about your gender; if you’re happy then I’m okay. Nothing else matters.”

He hiccuped and a small smile crept across his lips.  “Except for coffee.”

Emma grinned.  Teasing was good.  “Except for coffee.  Maybe Henry.”

“You’d walk right over our son for your first cup of the morning and you know it.”

“You know me too well.” His smile was fuller now and Emma pulled him close, rocking him back and forth slightly.  “I love you, so much.”

 

And it’s true.  

 

Emma loved him _so fucking much_ and it struck her all over again: fierce, frightening, and forever.

 

She thought back to her foster-sister and the razors they’d had in their bathroom and suddenly she’s close to tears because she’s glad she had such a shitty day. She's glad that she forgot her lunch, glad her engine broke, glad she came home early because she’s pretty sure that losing her partner would kill her.

“Reggie.”

“…Huh?”  Emma pulled back, blinking, yanked from her reverie.

“If you wanted…” he blushed and looked down shyly, and he looked _young_ , younger than Emma could ever remember. “…If you wanted to, you could call me Reggie.”

Emma cupped his face between the palms of her hands and smiled tearfully into his eyes, before pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“I want to, Reggie. _I want to_.”

He held her wrists and brushed his thumbs over the back of her hands.

 

And for the first time in a very long lifetime, he was at peace.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They talk to Henry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This is a tiny little chapter, but I wanted to have a different type of conversation per chapter, if that makes any sense.
> 
> I don't really write Henry as much as I do the other players of the Swan-Mills family unit, so I'm not entirely sure how in-character he is but I think I've raised the concerns that his character would have in this situation. I don't think Henry would have had as much exposure to trans people as Emma, so the change in pronouns doesn't come quite as easily to him.

It was nearing mid-afternoon, and if his fingers gripped the stem of the wineglass any tighter it’d snap. Emma had drank just enough to start feeling warm, but Reggie hadn’t touched much more than a drop since he’d remembered that school got let out at three o’clock and their son would be home soon after.

“How do you think Henry will take it?”

Emma refilled her glass and sighed. “I really have no idea.”

“It’s just like a band-aid, right?” Reggie looked up from talking to his wine, dark eyes tentatively hopeful. 

Emma reached over and covered his hand with her own.  “Only if you want to.”

“It’s just…” His voice choked and he swallowed harshly, flipping his hand over to hold on tightly. “I don’t think I could survive him turning his back on me again.”

“Did you want me to talk to him first?” There was no reply, but Reggie seemed to vibrate with anxiety, tears just below the surface. “Nothing has to happen today.”

“But it should… I-it _should_.”

“It’s your decision, Reggie.” She interlaced their fingers. “But I’ll be right beside you.”

* * *

Henry sat on the couch in the study and watched his fingers twisting together in his lap, processing what his parents had told him.  Emma had her arm around his Mo— _Dad_ (His Dad?) and her— _his_ —eyes were doing that thing where you see all the things happening inside.  Hope.  Fear. Love.  Pleading.  All of it.

“Does this mean you’re not going to be my mom anymore?”  She— _he—_ flinched at his question, and he flinched as well. The word “mom” was loaded with all sorts of tension between them, calling forth all of the almost-healed hurts from the last few years.

“Henry, I—”

“It’s just…” He looked up and their eyes locked and he tried to convey with his gaze the feelings he felt for the person that had raised him. “It's just that I don’t… I don’t want things to change. I don’t want to lose this, lose you.”

“Sweetheart, I love you so, so much.” His M— _Dad_ leaned forward and took hold of his hands and held them tightly.  “Nothing will ever change that.  _Nothing_.  And I’m still _me_ , I’m _still_ your parent, and you still mean _everything_ to me. It’s just… I’m a man, not a woman. You’re not going to lose me, Henry. This is who I’ve always been, only… now you know it too.”

Henry didn’t think he’d ever seen a smile look so sad, so imploring.  He pushed himself out of his seat and threw his arms around h— _him_ and held on tightly.  He didn’t understand, not completely, but he wanted to. He didn’t want to be the cause of any more pain.

His Ma wrapped her arms around the both of them, and somebody started crying.  

They sat there for a long moment, the three of them, wrapped up in each other.

* * *

That night, Emma volunteered to tuck Henry in.  She perched herself on the mattress, pulled the blanket up over him and waited.  Her son had questions, she knew he did, he’d had that look about all afternoon and she wanted to help field them on her partner’s behalf.

“Do I… do I call Mom ‘Dad’ now?”

“I think he’d really love that.”

He pulled a face. “Sorry. It still… sounds weird.” He looked down at his fingers.  “But I don’t want to hurt her.  _Him._ I don’t want to hurt _him_.” He looked up, eyes wide and shining. “I don’t want _anyone_ to hurt him.  Not after everything we’ve been through.”

“I know you don’t.” Emma gently ruffled his hair.  “You’re a good boy, Henry.”

“I guess… I guess it’s kind of like when I discovered that he was the Evil Queen.  I thought that meant he was actually a whole different person than I thought, but it turned out he was still my Mom.  _Dad_.  My Dad.  Y’know?”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. Sleep tight, kiddo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I've tried to emphasise that this isn't a story about "Regina wants to be a man" or "Regina is going to become a man" but a story about "Regina is really, already a man" and how that might look like. For this reason, Regina/Reggie's characterisation is something I've been thinking long and hard about. 
> 
> I think I've kind of conflated Reggie and young!Regina into the same sort of space because I feel like that period of time in their lives was when these characters were most themselves. In the show, Regina's in the process of coming back to herself, coming back from the Evil Queen to Regina. Here, I think that that "coming back" goes just one step further, going from Regina to Reggie but I'm really not sure how different Reggie's personality will be from Regina's, or how that might change with transition. I kind of see the Evil Queen as the major facade between Reggie and the rest of the world, and that Regina is (by comparison) pretty close in characterisation to Reggie. 
> 
> This whole thing has certainly made for a lot of interesting thinking about the nature of gender roles, that's for sure.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They discuss other things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So, this is the part that I had originally wanted to tack onto the last chapter, but it felt better as a stand alone.

When she went back to their room Reggie was curled up on the bed, facing away from the door. It was a position she recognized, one that was closely associated with anxiety.    So much had changed in the last twenty-four hours, and while her head was still spinning, she felt she had to keep things together while she adjusted.  She had to be strong for her partner, for her family, first and foremost.  

The centre had to hold, and if the centre had to hold, then she would damn well make it hold.

She exchanged her pants for boxers and crawled onto the bed, laying herself down carefully next to him.

“Henry’s fine.”

He turned his head to look at her curiously.  “You think so?”

“I do.  Come here.” She lifted her arm and he scooted into her. “Our family is doing fine.”

“Okay.”

Silence filled the room, a comforting blanket over the both of them, and Reggie pressed his face into Emma’s neck, her warmth a source of comfort.  Emma traced a nonsense pattern all over his back and he hummed with pleasure. It had been a very big, very emotional day and while Emma wanted to talk more, at the same she was conscious of the fact that Reggie had been far more drained by it than she.

He must have sensed her thinking, because he didn’t even open his eyes to speak.

“Out with it.”

“Just a question… back in the Enchanted Forest…”

“Yes?”

“Did you have anyone you could talk to?” It’s Reggie’s turn to trace nonsense patterns on Emma’s front, and Emma can feel the how the memories of the past weigh on her partner.

“I had Daniel …He was the only one who knew how I felt.  I didn’t really have the language to articulate it properly, but he understood me. I think Mother had guessed something was different about me, but I don’t think she had any idea.”

The _‘thank goodness’_ is left unsaid, and Emma pressed a kiss into his hair.

“Must’ve been tough.”

“It was.  There wasn’t really an understanding of it there, not like there is here.  You have no idea of the relief I felt when I discovered that there were other people in this world, people that were like me.”

The town had been pretty accepting of their relationship, because they’d been familiar with that kind of thing in the Enchanted Forest.  She’d consequently assumed that a transgender person wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but now it seemed that that might not be the case.

His hand stilled on her stomach and she joined their hands together. 

“So, introducing Reggie to Storybrooke…?”

He shook his head and burrowed deeper into her side.  “I’m not ready for that. I don’t think anyone’s ready for that.”

“…At home, then?" 

“That...?” He trailed off, and Emma could feel his smile. “I’d like that.”

Everything had happened so suddenly, but Emma felt like it was important to keep talking, to keep moving, to keep things open and happening.  When they'd first gotten together there had been walls between them, hundreds of them, and they'd worked so hard and for so long to lower them, that Emma reckoned she'd rather chew off her own leg than have them come back up again.

 _This was just another wall,_ she told herself.   _Just another wall._

The hand on his back started moving slowly back and forth, and she took a deep breath, tried to pick out her words.

“I know... I know you hadn’t planned on me and Hen finding out today, but…”

He lifted his head to look at her, and his brow furrowed.  “’But’ what?”

“I just wanted to know what your thoughts were on transitioning, that’s all.”

For a moment, he just looked at her, a smile playing over his lips, and his dark eyes were warm with affection, and just sort-of… drank her in, before he laid his head back down on her shoulder.  His voice was quiet when he spoke, but she could hear much so emotion in it that she knew this conversation was not unwelcome.

“I want to, Emma… _so, so much_.  And I want it to happen _now_ , but the people here... I don’t know if I can transition in Storybrooke.”

“But we don’t _have_ to stay here, y’know? Me, you and Henry – we can leave, if you wanted.  We could go and live wherever.”

“But your life is here, our lives are here.  My job – I don’t want to lose my job, Emma.  I don’t even want to lose Storybrooke. I may not have cast this one, but the design is mine.  It was the first thing I’d ever had that was _mine_.”

“Okay, putting that aside for two seconds.  Just, like, pretending for a moment that everyone in this town will be completely accepting, how did you want to approach things?  Like… I don’t know, finding a surgeon and stuff?”

“Since Snow forgot to take paperwork into consideration when she was casting the second curse, I no longer exist in the world outside of Storybrooke and doctors that will accept forged papers aren’t doctors that I have any interest in seeing.”

“But what about—”

“—And I _refuse_ to let Whale lay a hand on me.”

“Okay.  But we have magic here – couldn’t you just use a glamour or something?”

“A glamour is an illusion – it only changes the way that other people see you.  You’d see the difference, but I wouldn’t.  Nothing would change for me.”

“And you can't otherwise magic up whatever it is you want?"

"Magic can summon, it can exchange, but I'm afraid it doesn't quite work like that."  

No one had ever accused Emma of being the expert.  "Okay, so magic is out.”

“Well... maybe not entirely.”  She could hear it in his voice, how the tone changed.  She could hear the tentative hope, and she could feel the way it resonated with her.

“…Oh?”

“I heard a story once -- and maybe it was just a rumour - that there was a kind of magic that could _create_ , that could actually, _physically_ change a person.”

Okay, that was good.  That definitely sounded good.

“...But who could we ask about it? Rumple?”

She could feel his body stiffen against her and she had the distinct feeling that there was a minefield that lay that way.

“No.  Not Rumple.  _Never_ Rumple.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Again, I'm aiming to do this topic some kind of justice, so for those of you who are better acquainted with this kind of situation than I am, if things aren't ringing true, I would love to talk with you and get some feedback so as to make this story better. This story is, at least in part, an effort to educate (myself as much as anyone else) so please: talk to me.
> 
> Also, holy shit, I've been sketching out this story, and it's been making me cry so much. I had *not* been expecting that.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I was a little unsure of how to handle the pronouns in this story. What I wound up doing was using them as a reflection of Emma's perception of Regina/Reggie's identity, in that, it's not until Regina/Reggie confirms it to her that she mentally (and consciously) makes the switch. I hope that's okay.


End file.
